The retirement of Zlatan Ibrahimovic from international football meant a fundamental change in their approach. It was hard to be too cautious with one of the best strikers in the world demanding service but the flip side was that a more adventurous approach exposed other weaknesses through the team.

No such worries now, where the first priority against good opposition is their defensive discipline. Every player is completely signed up to the game-plan and has a very clear understanding of their role.

The system is largely 4-4-2, albeit with two hard-running and technically-limited strikers. Their banks of midfielders and defenders are compact, but do look to break quickly on the counter-attack.

Who are the key men?

Their centre-back and captain, Andreas Granqvist, who was playing here despite his wife due to give birth any day, is naturally a huge influence, as is Victor Lindelof whose defensive performances so far at the World Cup have suggested that he could have a positive future at Manchester United.

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Granqvist has already also scored two penalties in this tournament and the team have conceded only twice in four matches.

Through the team and it is the overall industry that is most striking but, in Emil Forsberg, they do have a player with the quality to create from deep while Viktor Claessen's passing has contributed two assists. They also still have Sebastian Larsson, suspended against Switzerland, whose dead-ball qualities are well known to Sunderland and Hull City fans.

What are their strengths?

They are defensively very difficult to break down, aerially strong and have a wonderful team spirit. They are also very patient, which makes them especially dangerous against teams who themselves want to counter-attack. This was evident in the match against Mexico when they forced their opponents to play differently to how they wanted and then punished the spaces that were left behind them.

Their growing collective confidence against the big boys is also now a big factor in their favour after eliminating Holland in qualification, Italy in the play-offs and then indirectly Germany in the group phase and now Switzerland out here in Russia.

And their weaknesses?

Sweden's attacking on-field limitations are most obvious. Of their two strikers, Ola Toivonen does not even play regularly for Toulouse and Marcus Berg, who missed several excellent first-half chances, has had more shots than any other players at this World Cup without scoring and currently plays his football in the United Arab Emirates.

Perhaps it was an expectation that they would be playing at a different venue or perhaps not playing at all. Whatever the reason, it was also striking just how many empty seats there were around the entire St Petersburg Stadium at kick-off. The Sweden fans were then loudly in the ascendancy but the atmosphere was more of a carnival than anything especially intimidating for an opponent.

What is the manager like?

Janne Andersson is an understated sort of character off the pitch but, on the touchline, he can become a surprisingly explosive presence. This was something Germany found out when he took exception to their celebrations and later admitted that he took no pleasure from seeing himself look like a “monster”.

He is generally diplomatic and quiet before matches, although you do have to wonder whether he was behind some of the pre-match mind-games against Switzerland that were so obviously aimed at unsettling Granit Xhaka.

He previously earned huge respect in Sweden for the way that he led IFK Norrköping to their first league title for 26 years in 2015, before replacing Eric Hamren as national team manager. Upon leading Sweden in the post-Zlatan era, he has been hugely effective at creating a team spirit that has made this squad greater than the sum of their parts.